


Clint Barton Did Nothing To Deserve This

by inkdust, l0g0phile



Series: The Goddamn Winter Soldier (et al.) [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes is a little shit, Clint and Natasha are Bros, Gen, Humor, Jarvis lives, M/M, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sarcasm, Team Bonding, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-08-11 20:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7905730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkdust/pseuds/inkdust, https://archiveofourown.org/users/l0g0phile/pseuds/l0g0phile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint had never met the Winter Soldier. Clint was really okay with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Tiếng Việt available: [Clint Barton Chẳng Làm Gì Để Đáng Bị Thế Này Cả](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11692416) by [Yuu (Fuyonako_Yuu)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fuyonako_Yuu/pseuds/Yuu)



Clint didn’t make a big deal about how much he put up with on a daily basis. It came with the job. Sometimes he looked at it as continued training. Tony Stark’s nonexistent definition of personal space was crowd desensitization. Cap’s ability to finish off two large pizzas without noticing was a refresher on the importance of getting food down early and fast. Anyone who had watched Natasha knit them a scarf wouldn’t be scared by much else.

So Clint wasn’t... _scared_. Per se. But if asked, he would still put himself under the category of “normal person,” and for a normal person here, a reasonable level of your garden variety _freaked out_ —yeah, he considered that acceptable.

Hill called him personally, so what the heck, he geared up. Standard mission, as much as anything could really be standard anymore. But there were too many hostiles, she said, too many exits—they needed to control the area. Which was always where Clint came in. It was almost an afterthought when Hill added, “And Rogers is bringing Barnes.”

_Say what now?_

She hung up, and Clint realized he had only said it in his head.

Natasha had seen him. She had known him back then—“from a distance,” she said. From what Clint had heard of the Winter Soldier, distance sounded good. Clint didn't even know what he was supposed to call him now. “Barnes,” apparently.

He couldn't blame Steve. Best friend shows up out of the ice, Clint would be fighting for him too. And when it came to blame, Clint knew a little more than most about waking up to find blood on his hands. But it was one thing to have the guy bunk with Steve in a safe house and another thing to drop him on a rooftop with Clint. And only Clint.

“You ready?” Natasha pulled her gaze from the view of the city to give him a once-over.

Clint shrugged, fiddling with a wonky arrow. “Sure.”

Her face was laughing at him.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Still laughing at him, but Clint ignored it when the elevator dinged.

Wilson carried his wing pack over one shoulder. Clint gave him a nod.

“Hey.” Wilson scanned the common area. “Steve not here?”

JARVIS was the one to reply. “Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes will meet you on site.”

“Really?” Stark walked in adjusting the wrist sensors for his suit. “Stars and Snipes too good for team time?”

“Would you like to tell the Winter Soldier how to prepare for a mission?”

Clint jumped when Wanda slid out from under the table, narrowly avoiding stabbing himself. “ _Kid._ How long have you been there?”

She wore a smug little smile. “You always check the places up high.”

“Are we sure about him?” Stark interrupted. “I mean, Netflix and Thai food, sure, go crazy, but should he really be shooting at people?”

“Well, he is pretty good at it.” Natasha’s lip curled in a way Clint would always find the slightest bit frightening.

“Cap says he’s on board.” Wilson shrugged. “And this bad guy trained a lot of HYDRA operatives, right? Seems like Barnes has a couple good reasons to shoot at his people.”

“First,” Clint muttered. He would shoot at them _first_. After that, all bets were off.

Something chirped, and Stark checked a holographic pop-up from his wrist. “Time to go. Roll call?”

“Everyone is accounted for, sir _._ ”

Clint slung his quiver over his back. Too late to back out now.

His face must have said as much, because Natasha’s eyes kept darting to him throughout the flight. But it was Nat, which meant that in the end she just asked, “So how many?”

“Out of sixty on site?”

“Between sixty and eighty.”

Clint watched the clouds clear as Natasha brought them lower. It was that blank beige concrete building in the distance. They probably had a Stark rant to look forward to later about what kind of self-loathing architect designed the thing. “Nineteen.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re not leaving many for Barnes.”

“Still not sure we need him.”

Natasha was quiet for a moment. “I think this is for him, too.”

Clint spotted the designated rooftop and unbuckled his seatbelt. “Well, if he harpoons me up there—”

“He’ll be fine. James is just…” She didn’t finish her sentence. Always comforting. “Get ready,” she said instead, coming in low over the building.

Clint grabbed his bow. “Just what?” he said under his breath as he headed for the hatch. “Just the Winter Soldier? Right. Just the Winter Soldier.”

Barnes was already on the roof. He had set up his rifle at the south corner and was kneeling to the side, adjusting a small piece. When Clint landed, he didn’t look up.

Briefly on the jet, Clint had wondered if he might look different. Something to signal that he was “Barnes” now, and not a freaky mechanical assassin. Like a matching Cap suit.

Nope. There he was, full Kevlar, hair hanging in his face, left arm glinting. Something that shiny really should have been a liability for a soldier made for stealth.

“Uh…” Clint cleared his throat. “Hey.”

Barnes ignored him.

“Okay.” Clint took up a position ten feet away and checked his sight lines. Two guards at the east entrance, poorly disguised as loiterers. Natasha and Cap would take the west entrance with Wanda, sending anyone fleeing either out the east entrance or along the skyway to the south. Between Clint and Barnes, with Stark and Wilson as air support, they would be picked off faster than they could run.

“You glad to be back in the action?” Clint tried again.

Nothing.

_If you want to convince the world you’re deprogrammed, buddy, you’re not doing great._

He took a better look at the guy, now that Barnes was facing the edge of the roof, bent over his rifle, and Clint could pretend to be examining his arrows. Barnes had the same black paint spread around his eyes that Clint had seen in photos.

“So...did Steve help with your makeup?”

Barnes’ head turned to stare at him. And wow, he didn’t even need the mask. That blank expression would be impressive if it weren’t terrifying.

Natasha’s voice came over the comms. “Rogers and I are in position. Barton, do you copy?”

Clint readied his bow. “Go for it.”

“Wilson?”

“All set.”

“Stark?”

“Let’s get this party started.”

Clint rolled his eyes.

“Barnes?”

Clint glanced at him. Barnes was flat on the roof, looking through the scope.

“Bucky?” Cap asked.

“Copy.” Barnes’ voice sounded like...frankly, it sounded like death.

“On three,” Cap declared. “Three...two…”

On _one_ , Barnes fired, and the first guard went down. Clint took out the second, and 0.5 seconds later, all hell broke loose.

Clint could see what Hill meant about crowd control. But they’d picked a good vantage point. Clint could aim and fire almost at his leisure—but that was nothing compared to Barnes. Clint wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but Barnes chose his targets like he was picking flowers. Slow and easy, until they went down in the blink of an eye.

And then Clint heard a sound.

He shook his head to clear it. That wasn’t…

Barnes squeezed the trigger, and Clint nearly missed his target. It was the softest sound, but he would swear to God it came from Barnes.

“ _Pew_.”

Like a laser gun.

Slowly Clint turned his head. Barnes hadn’t moved an inch, his eye fixed on the scope. And then Clint saw the corner of his mouth curled up.

_He’s fucking with me._

_The goddamn Winter Soldier is fucking with me_.

Barnes lined up his shot. And again—“ _Pew._ ”

And _no one_ said a word.

Clint smashed his hand against the comm piece in his ear. “Did no one hear that?!”

“Hear what?” Cap asked.

“The bullets pinging off my suit from the goon you’re supposed to be pincushion-ing? Because yeah, I hear that.”

Barnes lined up a headshot. “ _Pew_.”

“ _Tell_ me you heard that.”

“Clint? Heard what?” Natasha was out of breath.

“The damn gun noise!”

“Uh…” Wilson swooped to the left as someone shot upward with a semi-automatic. “...Yeah. Kind of a lot of that.”

“Not that— _Barnes_ —”

“Quit messing around, Barton.”

“ _Pew_.”

“ _Oh my god_.”

Stark cruised by low overhead. “Less talk, more snipe.”

“ _Pew_.”

Muttering wordlessly, Clint sent off a handful of arrows in rapid succession.

“What’s your count, Barton?” Natasha sounded more relaxed.

“Thirteen.”

“James?”

There was a pause. “Twenty.”

Clint let out a string of curses. Someone was laughing, and thank God it wasn’t Barnes because Clint might have throttled him and gotten himself Soldier-ed.

The flight back was quiet.

Natasha had an amused look that Clint didn’t need, now or ever. When he turned his head, he could see Barnes just in his line of sight, tucked into the seat beside Rogers. He might have been asleep. Probably not.

“So,” Natasha said softly, “what were you talking about gun noises?”

Clint let his head thunk against the back of the seat. “Forget it.” He twisted around one more time and swore under his breath.

Eyes still closed, the bastard was grinning.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our first collaboration! We have more to say - Clint's suffering isn't over yet - so stay tuned!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It'll be fun," they said. "There'll be pizza," they said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!! We love your comments and kudos as much as Clint loves pizza.

Two things were in Clint’s favor after this Winter Soldier bullshit: one, end of a mission; two, Friday. One meant pizza, two meant movie night, and the Avengers didn’t half-ass either one. The eight regulars could down a truckload of pizzas, and that wasn’t counting Thor.

Clint missed Thor. For the strong and silent type, at least he came with a sense of humor. Clint wondered how Thor would deal with the wet blanket in the Tower. Barnes still didn’t speak, and everyone else seemed as uneasy as Clint, giving Barnes a wide berth as they dug into the pizza boxes. Everyone aside from Rogers—and Natasha, which Clint didn’t try to understand.

She was smart about it, though, and no surprise there. She kept her movements slow and deliberate, and Clint heard a certain gentleness in her tone that reminded him of the days after the Chitauri attack. In sharp contrast to Rogers, who went around ribbing Barnes like they were still teenagers.

“What was wrong with that one?” he asked as Barnes picked over a slice of pizza.

Barnes didn’t flinch when Rogers slung an arm around his shoulders. “Mushroom,” Clint heard him grumble.

Rogers snorted. “But anchovies are okay?”

Clint couldn’t make out Barnes’ reply.

“Movie,” Stark declared. “What did we pick?”

“We didn’t,” Natasha answered, folding herself pretzel-style at the end of the couch. She had a slice of something covered in green vegetables that Clint always did his best to avoid, like any rational person.

“Yeah, you remember?” Wilson addressed Stark. “’Cause after _Back to the Future_ , you made us all go out on the roof to watch your ‘hoverboard’”—he gave an expressive pause—“and it almost knocked Rhodey off the building, and Bruce had to go meditate for an hour, and then we all listened to Steve argue with you instead of picking the next movie.”

Clint grinned. That one had been memorable. “‘Tony,’’ he quoted, mimicking Steve’s “stern” voice, “‘movie night is supposed to be fun for _everyone_ —”

“Movie night _is_ supposed to be fun for everyone.”

“Steve.” Natasha slapped the couch beside her. “You and James, c’mere.”

“So, movie,” Stark repeated, like none of them had spoken.

“And before anyone says it,” Rhodes cut in, “we will not be continuing the _Back to the Future_ series. At any point in the near future.”

Clint snickered. “But if we go _back_ —”

“Barton, I swear to God.”

“ _Robin Hood,_ ” Steve called out.

Clint wheeled around to face the couch. Barnes sat motionless between Steve and Natasha, like this situation was entirely out of his hands.

Yeah. Right.

“The movie with the foxes?” Wanda asked.

“ _Yes_.” Wilson jumped onto the other couch. “Man, that one’s the best.”

Clint glanced between Wilson’s couch and Natasha’s. They had taken his default seat, this Rogers-Barnes unit, but Natasha caught his eye and gestured to the rug in front of her with a clawing motion. Just as good. Nat’s nails were the best, and in the dark no one would make fun of him when she scritched his head like a cat.

And you know what, Clint liked _Robin Hood._

Barnes’ boot rested too close to Clint’s hip for comfort, but at least the danger arm was on the other side. Not that Clint really thought Barnes would come at him—or, rather, that Steve would let anything happen—but Barnes was scary fast, and some people were a little more breakable than Captain America.

But Disney made a good movie, and as the animals fired off arrows over absurd trajectories with terrible form, Clint started to reconsider the rooftop. Bottom line, he and Barnes had actually made a solid team. Barnes hit his marks like nothing Clint had ever seen, and that was what counted on a mission. Sound effects were extra.

Then, as Robin Hood’s shoddy arrow won the tournament, Clint scraped the bottom of his popcorn bowl.

He peered inside. It wasn’t totally empty—there were a few hard kernels at the bottom, but every edible piece had been picked clean. And it was a big-ass bowl. No way had he eaten that much popcorn.

_Crunch._

Slowly, Clint turned his head. Barnes’ eyes glinted in the light from the screen. A flash of teeth as he tossed a kernel into his mouth without looking away from Clint.

Natasha tugged on Clint’s hair. “Hey, this is your favorite part.”

“My favorite part was when he stuffed the snake into the basket and sat on him.”

“Aw, that’s mean, Barton.”

Clint didn’t answer Rogers. For the rest of the movie, he listened to the two of them chomp away at their bottomless tub of popcorn. Barnes hadn’t even been eating as he stole from Clint’s. He had just siphoned it into their own.

When the credits rolled, Clint waited for the rest of them to vacate the couch. He didn’t feel like looking at Barnes’ smug face.

Natasha drummed her fingers on the back of his neck. “You okay?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. Long day.”

“Well, I think there’s a slice of pizza left.”

“Yeah?” Clint craned his neck toward the boxes on the counter. “Bet it’s one of yours. That is not pizza.”

“Goodnight, Barton.”

Clint poked through the empty boxes without much hope, but then he struck gold—the last slice of meat supreme with mushrooms. He cackled triumphantly, holding it up like a prize as he headed for the elevator.

And almost ran smack into the Winter Soldier.

Barnes set him with that impassive stare. Honestly, it was unnatural. Clint glanced behind Barnes to the elevator. Where was Rogers? Didn’t he have to take Barnes back to Brooklyn?

“Hey, man,” Clint started to say.

Barnes took the pizza from his hand.

“Wh—”

His eyes locked on Clint’s, Barnes bit off the end of the slice. Then he turned on his heel and walked toward the elevator.

For a moment, Clint couldn’t form words. “There’s mushrooms on that, asshole!”

The elevator doors opened, and Rogers stuck his head out. “There you are,” he said to Barnes. He chuckled at the pizza. “One more, huh?”

If Barnes responded, it wasn’t audible.

“Come on, I’ll show you our floor.”

Barnes and the stolen pizza followed Rogers into the elevator without even a parting smirk. He could have at least gloated a little.

As the doors slid shut, the words sank in. _Their floor._

Where they were staying tonight. Where Barnes was staying tonight.

That’s it. Clint was sleeping on the roof.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because you guys should know, even if Clint doesn't, Bucky's reply to Steve's anchovy skepticism was, "Steve, anchovies are _fish_." Not fungus.
> 
> We have a plan for chapter 3, and it's going to enter Steve/Bucky territory, so either get excited or be warned now ;)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE ARE OFFICIALLY STUCKY. No regrets.

Clint did sleep on the roof. It wasn’t bad—he strung up a hammock under an overhang, out of sight of the access door in case Barnes got an itch for fresh air during the night.

He spent most of his nights in the Tower. Stark probably wanted them all to hang around 24/7, no matter what kind of chaos that would unleash, but so far he had only trapped Wanda and—the irony—Banner. The rest of them sliced and diced their own schedules to fit. Rhodes was in D.C. half the time, Wilson even more often. Natasha blew in at odd hours and sometimes was gone again without anyone laying eyes on her but JARVIS. And Cap could rarely be dragged away from his place in Brooklyn.

Cap had pretty much disappeared completely after Barnes was de-Wintered (at least nominally), only showing up when he was called in, which had made sense to Clint. Best friend back from the dead and all that. Clint had just thought they would stay in Brooklyn.

Like so many mornings, he jolted awake to find Natasha staring at him. Her left eyebrow smirking, her right eyebrow filled with judgment. “Really, Barton?”

Clint rubbed his eyes. “What.” He was wobbling on that line between indignant and whining, but he couldn’t bother to care.

“James won’t bite.”

“He might,” Clint muttered at her retreating back. “Hey,” he called louder. “Are they still here?”

She ignored him.

Clint never found out whether Cap and Barnes were still in the building. Neither of them made an appearance in the common area, and Clint wasn’t about to ask anyone else.

“Hey, JARVIS?” he tried around mid-afternoon. “Is Cap—”

“Captain Rogers’ comings and goings have been classified as private.”

Clint paused. “And Barnes—”

“Sergeant Barnes’ comings and goings have been classified—”

“—as private. Yeah, yeah.” Clint hoisted himself up into the air vent. “Why don’t I get to be classified,” he grumbled to himself.

“Agent Barton is classified as an Avenger, tier two. Full access to all floors, limited access to laboratories, private floor with biometric signature.”

“Huh.” Clint was considering what qualified as “limited access” when the first part registered. “Wait a minute—‘tier two’?” He jumped down from the ceiling and made for the elevator. “ _Stark_!”

*

Hill flew in the next morning for debriefing, which Clint learned four minutes before the meeting started when JARVIS woke him from a dead sleep with a casual comment that the others were gathering in the conference room.

“Fuckity fuck, fucking crack of dawn,” Clint mumbled as he shuffled down the hall at a trot. No time to detour for coffee. At least Hill kept her meetings short and to the point, because this was going to be rough. Especially if Stark started talking. And Stark always started talking.

“…which is unsurprising,” Hill was saying when Clint walked in. “Nice of you to join us, Barton.”

“JARVIS sucks, Stark.”

Stark made an offended sound. “Uh, he can _hear_ you.”

Clint headed for the empty seat on the opposite side of the room, flicking the back of Stark’s head along the way. And then Clint stopped.

Yep, they had stayed in the building. Both of them.

There was Cap, at the far end of the table, and there was Barnes on his right, directly across from the last empty chair. If the gods were up there, they were definitely the bet-making, dice-throwing, shit-stirring kind.

Clint slid into the seat, avoiding looking in Barnes’ direction. Which didn’t leave him a lot of options, because he could feel Natasha’s eyes on him from the seat diagonal, and he wasn’t looking at her, either. He stared down at the table. Ah, paperwork. Awesome.

“As I was saying,” Hill continued, “evidence is showing this ‘Taskmaster’ was only using that particular facility for storage and minor research. So while we were able to relieve him of a stock of weapons and training equipment, his current bases, or ‘schools,’ remain unknown. Stark and Banner have partially decrypted the data we collected.” She gave them a nod.

“The rest is finishing up pronto, but we’ve already got a couple of pings.” Stark made a pinching motion on his tablet and threw a glowing map up in the center of the table. “Here…”

Clint’s brain zoned out, quietly protesting its lack of caffeine, which was what drew his attention to the movement across the table. Barnes had a giant mug of coffee cradled in his right hand like a sacred artifact. And something about the notion of the Winter Soldier not being a morning person made Clint’s day about two percent better.

Sure, he had seen Barnes after the mission, without the war paint, out of the Kevlar, but it was another thing to see him in this worn, baggy hoodie. The sleeves were too long, the right one bunching up around his hand. With his shoulders hunched and the metal arm hidden, Barnes actually looked small.

And Clint realized he was looking exactly where he didn’t want to look. He was going to find Barnes giving him that dead stare, and then Clint would find out what would be stolen after his popcorn and pizza. His shoes, maybe. Or his kidney.

Barnes wasn’t staring at him. Barnes wasn’t looking at Clint at all. His eyes followed the line Hill was tracing across the holograph, then flicked to Rogers, to the papers in front of him and back, sharp and interested.

_Is he…?_ He was _paying attention._

_You little shit,_ Clint wanted to say, except it wouldn’t make any sense, and Stark would whine about being interrupted, and Wilson would whip out the words “conflict resolution,” and Clint would be the one chastised for being hostile.

Clint would be damned if Barnes knew more about the next mission than he did. _Get it together._

Was Barnes coming on the next mission?

He shook it out of his head. Natasha was saying something.

“If most of the operatives we’ve identified were active exclusively in the US, what makes you think he would be training them in Europe?”

“We’ve found evidence of wire transfers to Serbia and Belarus.” Hill tapped at her tablet. “One as recently as last week.”

Cap shifted at the end of the table. “I understand following the money, but I’m not sure we’re the ones who should be going in. If those turn out to be nothing but bank accounts—”

“Send Romanov first.”

Clint jumped a foot at Barnes’ voice, knocking his pen to the floor.

“Sorry?” Hill looked taken aback. Apparently Clint wasn’t the only one startled by Barnes’ power of speech. That or she just couldn’t discern words from his monotone.

“Send Romanov in first.” Barnes lifted his head a little to actually address the table, though he didn’t make eye contact with anyone. “Put the rest of the team on standby. She can make the call.”

Steve Rogers hadn’t been the only strategist among the Howling Commandos. Clint frowned at himself for forgetting that. Of course Cap would bring Barnes with him.

“Recon,” Hill pronounced. “What do you think, Rogers?”

Clint ducked under the table for his pen—and did a double take, almost smashing his head on the edge of the table as he dove back down.

That was— Well, that was… Clint blinked, recognizing distantly that he had about three more excusable seconds to let his eyes bug out at the sight of the hand resting comfortably on Cap’s thigh.

For fuck’s sake, that was the danger arm.

Clint scrambled back up and glued his gaze to the table, hoping his face wasn’t red, because he wasn’t a prude or a bigot, but _holy mother._

For a moment he questioned his own eyes. They were best friends. Maybe that looked different in the ‘40s. Maybe he was pushing something on them that wasn’t there.

But no, Clint knew what he saw. That hand sat well above the knee, fingers curling down the inner thigh. That was a hand that knew its way around.

Clint squeezed his eyes shut. _Why, brain._ Stark’s endless Virgin America jokes drifted through his mind. _Oh, Tony. You blissfully ignorant son of a bitch._

He pried his eyes open and was met with the Winter Soldier’s stare.

Clint flinched away, like a coward, and accidentally made eye contact with Natasha. Her eyebrows pinched in a way that clearly said, _What crawled up your pant leg, you complete imbecile._

He could still feel Barnes’ unwavering stare, but a metallic fluttering sound drew his attention as the metal arm shifted. What, was he copping a feel in the middle of debriefing? Clint forced himself to meet Barnes’ gaze. It was blank again, in unnerving contrast to his sharp focus on the mission planning. Like shutters coming down, impenetrable and intentional.

All of it was intentional. If Clint thought for a second that he had seen anything more than exactly what Barnes wanted him to see…

But _why_ , when they were keeping it quiet? And they were obviously keeping it quiet, because there was no way Tony Stark could know Cap was getting his cake frosted— _seriously, brain,_ _NO_ —without slipping it into every punchline for a month. And Cap with _Barnes_ , that was a whole other… No one even knew Cap was _gay_ —or whatever he was, the point was none of them knew. So why _Clint_?

The corner of Barnes’ mouth curled ever so slightly into a smirk, and Clint realized why.

_Because no one will fucking believe you._

And then the second realization, as he sat locked in the Winter Soldier’s artfully crafted stare. The one that had them all nervous about how much ice might be left lurking in there.

This bastard was _fine_.

Clint let his forehead thunk against the table.

“Okay there?” Banner asked beside him.

“I didn’t get coffee.”

Clint felt as much as heard the scrape of a cup as Barnes slid his giant mug toward Clint’s head.

Under the table, Clint gave him the finger.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> More chapters in the works - three more? We'll see. It's going somewhere.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So you know when you’ve seen something you shouldn’t have?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Levity takes a slight dip in this chapter - but this is a Bucky Barnes story.

Clint flopped onto a barstool with a sigh. He and sleep were not friends.

Wilson glanced up from his sandwich assembly line. “You gonna help, or you gonna just sit there?”

“Just sit here.” Clint reached for a can of soda left on the counter. He didn’t know whose it was and didn’t really care.

Wilson rolled his eyes. “Man, I hope Nat gets back soon.” Clint pretended not to hear.

He wouldn’t have been so bent out of shape if it had been business as usual in the Tower. Natasha was in and out all the time anyway, and Clint didn’t make a habit of moping around. Because there was Wanda, and Bruce, and Pepper, and the Avengers gym was pretty damn awesome.

But it wasn’t business as usual, because Rogers and Barnes were _still here_.

Yeah, sure, okay, they were all supposed to be on standby. But it was one thing to have Wilson stay in New York. It was another thing to have _Barnes—_

Yesterday at breakfast, he had swiped not one but two slices of Clint’s toast. When Stark had almost caught him with the second one, he had stuffed it in his mouth. Whole.

After lunch, Clint had bent to tie his shoe and half a pound of sesame seeds cascaded out of his hair. They hadn’t even eaten anything with sesame seeds.

Before dinner, Clint had gone down to the gym to work off the restlessness that always hit when Nat was on a solo op and had been subjected to the most uncomfortable six seconds of a wrestling match he had ever seen, before he managed to peel his eyes away and flee to the roof. And that was the diabolical element of Barnes’ M.O. No one else would have batted an eye at them. But Clint knew.

And Barnes wasn’t going to let him forget. Clint tried not to watch them, he really did, but when Barnes leaned over to whisper something to Cap at dinner, Clint couldn’t be sure Barnes’ lips hadn’t brushed his ear. And then Barnes looked past him, directly at Clint, and Clint became abso-fucking-sure they had.

_No one will ever believe you._

It was cruel, was what it was.

“You’re not helping Sam?” Wanda breezed past with a disapproving look. “There are more of us for lunch again today.”

“Believe me, I know,” Clint said under his breath. He drained the last of the soda as she started laying slices of cheese on the buttered bread.

Clint was starting to see any food as another thing Barnes could take from him.

They showed up when the second batch was sizzling on the stove, Barnes trailing Cap like a shadow swallowed by a blue hoodie. Cap gestured to the barstool at the opposite end of the counter, and Barnes sat without a word.

“Hey,” Wilson said from the stove. “Extra cheese on yours, Bucky, right?”

Barnes didn’t answer, but the question seemed rhetorical when Wilson set a plate in front of him ten seconds later. Clint wondered how many times Wilson had eaten with them in Brooklyn.

He wondered if Wilson _knew_.

He had to, didn’t he? He had helped Cap search for Barnes after the shit hit the fan in D.C. And people trusted him with crap, even when they didn’t want to.

Clint flinched at a metallic flash out of the corner of his eye. Barnes had just picked up his sandwich. Clint let out a slow breath. Hair trigger, much. He wondered if it was hard to scrape cheese off the danger arm.

Clint ate with growing resignation, holding his sandwich in a death grip. If Barnes couldn’t get at his food, he would just do something worse. Clint eyed him from across the table, but Barnes didn’t even look up from his plate.

The part of Clint that didn’t immediately assume this was a new, terrible plan felt offended.

When everyone started to clear out, Barnes didn’t spare Clint a glance as he followed Cap to the elevator.

“Turd,” Clint grumbled after the doors closed. He didn’t move from the table, listening to Wilson cleaning up at the sink and Stark trying to convince him to just throw everything in the dishwasher.

“The cheese is all stuck on, man.”

“ _JARVIS_ is the dishwasher. The cheese will be gone.”

“You’re not supposed to put in non-stick pans.”

“You don’t want to know what I’ve put in this dishwasher.”

“You’re right, I do not want to know.”

“Hey. It’s a good test for the suit. High temperature—”

“I bet you run it on ‘pots & pans.’’”

Hadn’t Stark built Barnes a new arm? A grin spread over Clint’s face. That would have been thoroughly tested.

“Actually, it’s called R&D.”

Clint snickered to himself. “‘Repulsors & danger arm.’”

Wilson pushed a button to light up the dishwasher display and snorted at the screen. “You actually programmed it. You know what, never mind. I shouldn’t even—”

“Wait, did you just say ‘ _danger arm_ ’?” Stark spun back toward the table. “As in Barnes…”

“Dude, that’s really insensitive.”

“I’m stealing that.” Stark tossed a grape into his mouth from a bag that came out of nowhere. “That is mine now.”

Wilson grabbed the bag from him. “I repeat—insensitive.”

“Also hilarious.”

“Yeah, we’ll see how hilarious Cap finds it.”

Stark spread his hands. “Hey, Barton said it.”

“You can’t take the credit and avoid the blame.”

“Watch me.”

Wilson made a face. “Man, that’s your favorite line.”

Clint left them to bicker. If he had to hear one more argument debating the “authenticity” and “cool factor” of flying with or without wings. (With, Clint believed privately, but no one ever asked him.) He headed for the gym, praying he wouldn’t walk in on another wrestling match. Neither of them had spotted him outside the door yesterday, but if Barnes found him now, whatever current reprieve Clint had been granted would—

A harsh gasp brought him to a halt. The sound was choked off, but Clint could trace it close by. As he approached the bend of the hall, unconsciously slipping into a silent ambush step, he caught a low voice.

“Hey. Are you with me?”

Silence.

“Are you with me, Buck?”

Clint peered around the corner and froze.

Barnes was hunched on the floor against the wall, his knees pulled up to his chest, his eyes pinched shut. His hands were wrapped tight around Steve’s wrists.

Barnes sucked in a breath that sounded painful. “I’m with you,” he whispered. “I’m…”

Clint shouldn’t be here. He should walk away.

“Where did we just come from, Buck?”

“Tower. Lunch.” Barnes’ tongue flicked over his lips. “Sam made grilled cheese.”

“Sam makes good grilled cheese.”

“I ate some of yours. When you weren’t looking.” The words tumbled out, too fast. “I—” Cut off by another ragged breath. “I can’t, Steve, it’s…” His grip tightened, flesh and metal, but Steve didn’t even wince.

“You can. We can call Nat, if you want. You remember what she said before she left?”

“Call if Steve’s…pain in the ass. And I said—I said—”

“Do you want to call her?”

Barnes shook his head, his eyes still closed. “Just you.” Blindly, he brought Steve’s hands up to cup his face.

“Just me.” Steve leaned their foreheads together. “Okay. We can do that.”

Clint’s feet finally obeyed him, and he didn’t breathe until he hit the elevator.

“Shit,” he hissed, pressing his head against the closed doors. The metal was cold. “Shit, shit, shit.”

He had claimed Barnes was fine. Not to anyone else, but inwardly, Clint had shed all doubt.

That, huddled in the hallway, was not fine.

And Clint of all people should have fucking known better.

Tasha had caught him the last time he had woken up with tears on his face, shaking with the image of an arrow he couldn’t aim away from its target, his fingers slowly slipping on the string.

“How often?” she had asked softly.

Often enough. It would always be often enough.

“Agent Barton,” JARVIS cut in.

Clint’s head jerked up. “Yeah.” Standing in a stationary elevator. “Sorry—” He tried to think of a floor to go to.

“Pardon the interruption, but Agent Romanov requests your assistance in Babruysk.”

Clint slapped his back pocket, looking for his phone, but he could picture it lying on the table in the common area. _Look alive, Barton._ His brain supplied Natasha’s voice anyway.

“Is the team—”

“You alone, sir. She assures me it remains a mission for stealth.”

There was always something great about hearing JARVIS say stuff like that. Clint shook himself, sending Barnes to the back of his mind. Time to get back to worrying about Nat.

\---

“I told you not to worry.” Natasha closed the door behind him and turned three deadbolts. The room was a typical dump—two beds, a moldy couch, and a blueprint laid out on the table.

“ _You_ didn’t tell me anything.”

Her eyebrow rose infinitesimally. “Well, I told JARVIS to tell you, because someone didn’t pick up his phone.”

Clint slung his duffle onto the spare bed and started going through his gear. “I got distracted.”

He had spent a good chunk of the flight debating what to say to Natasha about Barnes. If he should say anything. She was clearly more involved than she let on, but that was never a surprise. She hadn’t told Clint for a reason, and that reason was privacy, and he had just finished shitting all over that.

That was where he ended up starting, as they staked out a bland office building near a train station. “So you know when you’ve seen something you shouldn’t have?”

Natasha adjusted her binoculars. “Please don’t tell me about Stark’s ass.”

“Not that. But that was horrifying.”

She gave a snort, and Clint tried to use the pause to regroup. He didn’t even know what he wanted to ask. None of it would change anything. Not for him, not for Barnes.

“What, then?”

Once again, Clint’s mouth betrayed him. “You know Cap and Barnes are…”

Natasha didn’t move. “Are what?”

“…Together.”

When she lowered the binoculars, the look on her face was one of the few that was still perfectly blank to him. “I wouldn’t expect you to be one to have a problem with that.”

Clint scrubbed a hand through his hair. “That’s not what I wanted to say.”

And she allowed him that—he could never stop thanking Natasha for that, for understanding how damn annoying words were. “What did you mean?” she asked simply.

He exhaled, rubbing a sore spot above his temple. On the jet he had found one last lingering sesame seed behind his ear. He had stared at it for a long time. “It’s fucked up, what they did to him.”

As if that didn’t win Most Obvious Understatement of the Year. But Natasha just gazed out the window, binoculars abandoned in her lap. “Yes.”

“I didn’t know. I mean, I knew, but…” He could hear the hitch in Barnes’ breath, almost a sob. “I didn’t know.”

“What did you see?”

“Panic attack, I guess. Steve was with him.”

“Did they see you?”

Clint shook his head. “Still feel like the world’s biggest asshole.”

The corner of her mouth curled. “Thought I told you not to talk about Stark.”

He laughed weakly. “You’re mean, Nat.”

“And you’re not.” She bumped her elbow against his. “That’s important.”

A flash of movement across the street drew her binoculars back up. “There’s our guy. Let’s go.”

\---

There was little talking on the way back. That was how it was with Nat—sometimes it seemed like they couldn’t shut up, trading sarcastic digs back and forth across an entire ocean, and other times the cockpit was silent. Things were easy with her, even if no one else seemed to see it.

Except Barnes. That was one part of the situation that Clint didn’t struggle to understand.

When they got back to the Tower, Natasha handed Clint most of her gear to put away. “I’ll owe you one.”

“You owe me five,” he countered, without much feeling. He didn’t have to guess where her first stop would be.

But she had taken the wrong direction, as it turned out. Clint walked into the armory to find Barnes kneeling in front of a bench, methodically disassembling an M4.

Three days ago, Clint would have backed out of that room like his ass was on fire. Now, he stopped in the doorway and evaluated. Barnes was wearing that giant blue hoodie again, one that had to be Cap’s, and Clint wondered if that was a signal of a bad day. Barnes’ back was inscrutable.

“You gonna stand there all day?”

Clint wasn’t proud of it, but he had to stifle a squeak. He forced his feet forward and started laying out their equipment. The array of bows really was Stark’s best gesture, especially since Clint had to put up with all the Legolas jokes.

Barnes continued with the rifle, cleaning each piece with single-minded intensity. He must have taken it down to the range. Clint hoped he had taken it down to the range.

“You, uh…” Clint cursed himself for opening his mouth without a plan. Not like that was a rare event, but it was twice as bad here. A stupid, stupid part of him wanted to ask if Barnes was doing okay.

_I swear to God, Barton, if you say a word._

When did his internal warning start sounding like Natasha?

“I what.”

Clint blanked. He glanced at the rifle. “You just do that for fun?”

Barnes made a noise that wasn’t exactly a snicker but hit pretty close to the mark. “Fun,” he repeated.

Clint wondered if he needed to break out the Merriam-Webster. “Yeah, some people…like that kind of thing.”

Barnes gave an aggressively disinterested grunt. Clint heard something click and realized the rifle was completely reassembled.

_Okay, trauma acknowledged, he’s still scary as shit._

Clint started trying to sort his arrows as fast as possible without looking like he was sorting them as fast as possible, but he didn’t need to bother. The rifle returned to the rack—way more quietly than a rifle should—and Barnes was gone.

“Guess you don’t unlearn how to ghost,” Clint muttered, long after he heard the elevator close. Just in case.

An hour later, he was still trying to wrap his head around the conversation. Did that count as a conversation? They had both said some words, but he had a hard time believing that any words from Barnes would ever be directed at him. Not on the best of days, and definitely not in the ambiguous hoodie of sadness.

Clint frowned at his reflection in the elevator doors. Nat was a better judge of character than anyone else in their ragtag band, but even if Clint wasn’t mean, he was still sort of a dick.

He found the common area deserted. “JARVIS, where is everybody?”

“The other Avengers, with the exception of Dr. Banner, are in the gym.”

“Nat, too?”

“All of the Avengers, with the exception of Dr. Banner and yourself.”

JARVIS didn’t need to get an attitude about it.

But Clint should have paid more attention to the wording, because then he might have been prepared for what was happening in the gym. For a few seconds he had to just stare.

No, nothing would have prepared him for this. He stopped behind the bench where Natasha and Wilson formed an audience. “Is the floor…moving?”

“ _That’s_ your question?” Natasha asked, picking idly at a fingernail.

She was right. A better question: “Why do we have this many ping-pong balls?”

“Stark wanted to test the floor panels,” Wilson replied, glancing rapidly between the control on his wrist and the scene in front of him. “And then, you know…” A ping-pong ball split open with a loud pop. “…Thor.”

“Clint Barton!” Thor boomed, swinging the hammer like a golf club. “Join us!”

He sent a ball flying toward the opposite end of the room, but halfway there a red force field deflected it to the side. Before the ball could hit the ground, the shield hurtled out of nowhere to launch it back toward Thor.

“Tony!” Cap griped when the floor tilted sharply under him in response, knocking him to one knee.

Stark cackled from mid-air, where he hovered in the repulsor boots, his fingers flying over a tablet.

The shield ricocheted off the wall and Barnes caught it, letting the momentum swing him around to hurl it into the path of another white ball. It narrowly missed a collision with the hammer.

Clint looked back at Thor. “You know, I think I’m good right here.”

Natasha patted the bench beside her. “Sit, Barton. We deserve to watch other people sweat.”

Wanda yelped as the floor tile beneath her suddenly shot upward, and a ball pelted her in the cheek. “Ouch!”

“Sorry!” Wilson jabbed at his wrist display, and his Redwing swerved away.

Clint squinted at the drone. “Did you hook that thing up to a pitching machine?”

Natasha draped her legs over his lap. “A very tiny one.”

“You’re bad at this, Wilson,” Stark called out. “No mercy.” He ducked as two balls whizzed past his head.

“So when did Thor show up?” Clint asked Natasha.

“Steve says yesterday. He hadn’t met Barnes yet.”

“Well, this is an ice breaker.”

Barnes threw the shield back to Cap, diverting a ball along the way. He had given up the hoodie, the full length of his arm gleaming under a Captain America T-shirt. Clint coughed to cover what would probably have been a snort.

A ping-pong ball smacked him in the side of the head.

“Hey!” Clint protested. “I’m not playing.”

Wanda glanced over as she leapt onto a steadier square of flooring. “Probably mine, sorry!”

Cap chuckled. “No safe spot for spectators.”

When a second ball clipped his forehead, Clint knew. He watched Barnes deflect one with the danger arm and almost missed the subtle movement as he palmed it in his other hand.

Yeah. Barnes was back.

Clint turned to Natasha and opened his mouth to finally have out with it—screw his pride, he was done being crapped on—when the thought registered. He looked back at Barnes, at the glint in his eyes and the barest trace of a smile on his face, and that dorky T-shirt.

“Jerk!” Steve said, laughing, when Barnes snagged the shield before he could catch it.

This was what the good days looked like. And fuck if that kid didn’t deserve all the good days he could get.

The ping-pong ball struck Clint square in the chest.

_God damn it._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters to go! Thank you for reading - we love your comments and kudos as much as Tony loves messing with kitchen appliances.
> 
> Grilled cheese, of course, comes from owlet's [Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail](http://archiveofourown.org/series/195689).
> 
> Say [hi](https://ink-dust.tumblr.com/) on [tumblr!](http://l0g0philewrites.tumblr.com/)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wasn’t like Clint didn’t have friends.

Clint loved Thor.

It was near impossible to dislike the guy, but Clint felt like he was the only one to appreciate just how much better everything was with Thor there. Sometimes he didn’t even have to say anything. The look on his face the first time he tasted cotton candy. Or that time he’d accidentally seen one of those shows about tiny houses. So when Thor dropped by, Clint tended to duck out of whatever he could get away with ignoring and just sort of follow him around. Just to see what would happen next.

Good thing Thor didn’t mind the company. “Will you join me, friend?” he asked after breakfast, gesturing to the elevator.

Well, with an invitation like that. “Where to, buddy?”

“I believe I’ve paid a visit to everyone but Tony.”

“Mr. Stark is in the lab,” JARVIS suggested.

Could be worse. Stark’s rambling wasn’t exempt from the better-with-Thor effect. There was something about listening to him explain science to a guy who was literally beamed up into the sky.

“Came to see what all the fuss is about, huh?” Stark asked when JARVIS let them in. He abandoned an unidentified object on the worktable and brushed off his hands.

Thor stopped to gaze at the blue schematic suspended in the center of the room. “Is this the fuss?”

“The current fuss. Have you gotten a good look at this baby yet?” Stark spun the holograph to face them, and Clint recognized it as a blown-out cross-section of Barnes’ arm.

“This arm was your work?” Thor nodded in appreciation. “I have not requested permission to examine it. The sergeant seemed in low spirits when we first met.”

“Yeah, Barnes is a little…” Stark trailed off intentionally, but Thor hadn’t really embraced unfinished sentences.

“A little what?”

“Moody,” Stark answered as Bruce said, “Complicated.”

Clint glanced toward the other side of the lab, where Bruce was quietly monitoring something under a microscope. He would know about good days and bad days.

“Moody,” Thor echoed. “I have not understood why this word for moods refers only to troubling ones.”

“Eh, it’s really more about the mood _swings_.” Stark zoomed in on a smaller piece of the arm. “And it’s Russian roulette over there.”

Thor’s brow furrowed, and this would have been Clint’s favorite part, when Thor would ask with every ounce of gravity, _Is this a food or a dance?_

But Stark didn’t shut up.

“And—sure—the guy’s a good shot, historically a little too good, if we’re being honest…” Stark cocked his head thoughtfully. “ _Is_ it roulette? That’s one in six. Might be more like a jack-in-the-box.” He scrolled idly through another screen. “Keep turning that crank long enough, and eventually he’ll go off.”

“ _Stark._ ” Clint blinked in surprise when they both turned to him. He realized his fist was clenched at his side. “Leave it alone.”

Stark raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t know you were a friend of the Kremlin Gremlin.”

“Tony—” Bruce let out a low sigh. “Really?”

Thor’s frown had deepened. “Sergeant Barnes was a prisoner of war, was he not? Such suffering is not quickly ended.”

“No. It’s not.” Clint closed his eyes, fighting back the flash of blue in his mind. He glared at Stark. “And you fucking know that.”

Thor followed him out of the lab, silent until they reached the elevator.

“He means no harm,” Thor said then, in a tone that was well aware that the words wouldn’t help but was saying them anyway. Clint wondered how many times he had used that tone with Loki.

“I know.” Clint scrubbed a hand down his face. “Sometimes I think that’s the damn problem.”

In unspoken agreement, they moved on to the gym, where Clint beat his frustration into submission in a sparring session. (More people should try spending an hour repeatedly slamming into Thor’s immovable mass. Clint was going to sleep like the dead.) But one of Stark’s words stuck with him, niggling like an itch. _A friend_.

Was he?

Was he really?

It wasn’t like Clint didn’t have friends. He had Nat. He would call Bruce and Wanda friends—and Thor, so patient with Clint’s puny punches—and sometimes Cap turned into “Steve” in his head. But what did it mean to be a friend to Bucky Barnes?

Clint returned to the roof, stretching out on a concrete slab above a vent that belched hot air, and called up everything he knew about 21st-century Barnes. Big fan of food, especially stolen. Partial to firearms. Knives. Sparring with Cap. An image flashed in Clint’s memory, under the flurry of ping-pong balls, of the shield flying back and forth between them. Playing.

And Clint got an idea.

It was a terrible idea. It was going to end with someone in a hospital bed, and that someone was one hundred percent going to be Clint.

He was going to do it anyway.

\---

It took four days to come up with something that (probably) wouldn’t get him outright killed. It took two more days to round up the supplies and sweet-talk JARVIS. In the meantime, Barnes swiped a blueberry muffin, a stick of beef jerky, and Clint’s favorite seat in the common area. And still no one noticed.

Clint would have called that impossible with Natasha in the room, but Barnes was a sneaky bastard. If he wanted to keep his methods secret, Clint believed no one would ever know. That was about to change, if Clint had the balls to go through with this plan. He could only hope Barnes considered Cap a reasonable exception.

The elevator doors opened. Ignoring the subtle disapproval in JARVIS’s tone, Clint slipped on his gloves and a pair of disposable shoe covers he’d nicked from the lab.

That’s right. He wasn’t taking any chances.

He would’ve banked on Cap already knowing about his boyfriend’s latest hobby—when had Clint become a hobby?—if it weren’t for the sheer honest obliviousness on his face. And he couldn’t imagine Cap sanctioning his torment, however harmless it ultimately was. Though Clint wouldn’t be the first to point out the glaring blind spot in Cap’s vision, six feet tall and handsy in meetings.

And definitely not using Cap’s spare bed.

_See_ , Clint reasoned as he crept down the hall to the master bedroom, _not my fault that Cap’s going to see this._

He braced himself as he cleared the tripwire in front of the door—but, really, what did he think he would find, a sex dungeon? They’d hardly spent more than a week in the Tower.

Still, curiosity was a beast. Clint didn’t snoop when he wasn’t being paid for it, and his chances of survival would tank if he left evidence that he’d touched anything beyond the necessary, but he couldn’t help a quick scan of the room. Cap had left his phone charging by the bed, perched on the nightstand beside a stack of books, a stray pen, a half-empty water bottle. Barnes’ side was bare except for a snarl of earbuds. If he’d seen this right after New York, Clint would have been surprised that Cap seemed to be the messy one. But lately he had noticed Cap relaxing more, loosening his grip on the persona when they weren’t in the field. Those were the times he felt more like “Steve.”

Clint eyed the pillows nudged together in the center of the bed. He really should have suspected something sooner. The guy was still human.

So was Barnes. Tripwires and all.

When Clint eased open the first drawer of the dresser, his hypothesis about the hoodie’s ownership was affirmed. Perks of dating a man, he supposed. The drawers were a grab bag, Cap’s running clothes strewn indiscriminately among a large quantity of black. And peeking out here and there, the shirts Clint had hoped for.

There was no way Tony Stark would only force one Captain America shirt on Steve. Clint found four in the middle drawer and a fifth in the bottom, the one Barnes had worn the other day. Clint opened his drawstring sack, feeling like he should be stealing a Christmas tree.

Now _that_ song was going to be stuck in his head. But Nat said he wasn’t a mean one.

And the Grinch hadn’t left anything in exchange. There was no real analogy. Focus.

When he’d finished, Clint’s gaze landed on a photo tucked into the mirror—Cap and Barnes with the fabled 107th. Not smiling, but close. Taken on a good day. Clint stared at the tiny face of James Barnes, looking out from a lifetime ago.

“Please tell me I’m doing the right thing here.”

Of course the picture didn’t answer.

\---

The next morning, Clint was wound tighter than he’d like to admit. Barnes must have discovered his work hours ago, but Clint still had no idea whether it had been taken in the spirit intended. He wasn’t dead yet? Great. Encouraging.

He went down to the gym early, forcing his muscles to move. This was the worst plan he’d ever had. Pranking the Winter Soldier. _Damn it, Barton._

The door slid open, and Clint’s stomach swooped for a split second before he realized it was Cap. And then his stomach swooped lower at a flash of purple. Cap was wearing one of the Hawkeye T-shirts.

Clint managed something that felt like an awkward cousin to a smile. “Hey, man.”

“Hey!” Cap pointed at his own chest. “Nice one. Bucky said you swapped every single one.”

“Oh.” Clint was probably starting to look constipated. “Yeah, thanks.”

Cap grinned, full of teeth, and clapped a hand on his shoulder with a dark chuckle. “Watch your back, man.”

And he left Clint standing frozen, a loop running through his head that sounded like _oh shit oh shit oh shit_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter - Clint's fate hangs in the balance.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with us! We eat comments and kudos like Bucky eats stolen food.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! (The big one. The one we've all been waiting for.)

In spite of the incidents suggesting otherwise, Clint wasn’t stupid. Fear was an evolutionary response to scary shit, because scary shit was usually dangerous. Like anything Stark decided to make on day four without sleep, or Natasha if someone ate the last of the Grape-Nuts. (That was only one time, and Clint had been bored, and the box had been sitting within reach.) And it wasn’t like the Winter Soldier didn’t count as scary shit—that pretty much hit the top of the list. It was just that Clint was thinking a lot less about the danger arm and a lot more about Bucky Barnes.

God, he didn’t want to fuck this up.

He had probably fucked all of this up.

Clint showed up for movie night early, because his legs had cramped up sitting in the air vent, and after a while he figured Barnes could get at him just as easily in the air vent. So he hung around shooting the breeze with Wilson, pretending he wasn’t checking the door every six seconds.

“You doing okay?” Wilson asked finally, because he picked up on more than anyone wanted him to.

“Yeah.” Clint shook his head dismissively. “Yeah.”

Wilson did that pause that would let Clint change his mind, and damn it, Clint changed his mind.

“There’s sort of a…” What was he even supposed to say. He checked the door again. “You and Barnes are…friends.”

Wilson gave a short laugh. “I don’t know if I’d go that far. But I do what I can. You looking to apply?”

“Oh, I…” Clint scratched his head. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“He could use a friend. If he wants one.”

That was the question.

Bruce wandered in, cutting off wherever this awkward conversation was going, and Clint claimed his usual seat at the far end of the couch. No way was Barnes sitting behind him this time.

 _Watch your back,_ Cap had said. Clint had never considered him hard to read, but that grin loomed in the back of his mind like a puzzle piece without a slot. Watch-your-back like two guys just messing around? Watch-your-back like Clint was going to wake up with his hair shaved off? Watch-your-back like Clint was going to wake up without an ear?

He blinked and jumped. Barnes was sitting on the other couch. How had Clint not even noticed him come in? Where was Cap?

Clint twisted around. No Cap.

 _Warning_ , something flashed wildly. _Warning. Warning._

But Barnes wasn’t looking at Clint. He was focused intently on… Clint peered out of the corner of his eye. An old paperback book. Barnes was reading a book.

“There you are.” Cap flopped onto the couch beside Barnes. He had changed out of the Hawkeye shirt. “How did you beat me here?”

Barnes gave that little ghost of a shrug. “You’re slow.”

“Oh, I’m slow.” Cap kicked his ankle. “I’ll remember that the next time you’re in the shower for twenty minutes.”

Barnes muttered something too low for Clint to hear, and Cap went pink, and Clint found himself torn between dismay and morbid curiosity. Even just plain curiosity. After seeing their apartment, how _normal_ their life looked, he couldn’t help wondering what it was like to really know Barnes. What he said when he spoke more than a four-word sentence.

You know, if he didn’t decide to kill Clint for stealing his Captain America shirts.

“So, movie,” Stark declared behind them. “What did we pick?”

“ _War and Peace_. 1966.” Natasha slid into the seat beside Clint.

“We did not pick that.”

“ _Robin Hood_.”

Clint whipped his head around with a terrible stab of déjà vu.

“Capsicle, we _just_ —”

Barnes leaned in to Cap’s ear again.

“ _Men in Tights_.”

Barnes didn’t look at Clint. Not through the entire movie. Not once.

\---

When Clint woke up the next morning—still not dead, it was worth noting—the city was blanketed in snow. He padded into the kitchen to find Wilson at the stove, halfway through a giant bowl of pancake batter.

“Extending my stay,” Wilson said before Clint could ask. “Snow day.”

“Join us.” Natasha waved a fork at the open barstool.

“Morning, Barton.”

Clint blinked hello back at Cap before he realized the group he had just walked into. Natasha, Wilson, Cap, and Barnes. That little club. He darted a glance toward the far end of the counter, but Barnes was fussing with a dressing on Cap’s knuckles. Cap murmured something unintelligible that probably ran along the lines of _you know it’s going to heal up in an inhumanly short time_ because Barnes just frowned at him and continued fussing.

It was kind of cute.

“Barton.” Natasha smacked the stool next to her.

“All right, give a guy a minute.” Sitting at the end of the row, Clint couldn’t see Barnes, but he couldn’t worry that much with Natasha between them. Clint still doubted Barnes’ ability to actually get anything past Nat.

So when the pancakes were gone and Stark ambled in demanding they play board games with him, Clint didn’t invent a reason to crawl into the ceiling instead. He didn’t _want_ a reason, honestly, because snow was a good excuse for team bonding, and Wilson hadn’t been exposed to enough of the genius and horror that was the Avengers’ game collection.

Nothing was sacred. Boards were redrawn, cards were added and subtracted, standard dice were swapped out for eight- and twelve-sided monstrosities. Most of the modifications were aimed at making things harder, because those of them who weren’t clever enough to beat the game tended to be that much better at cheating at it.

There were also the less essential edits, like how personally offended Stark was by the dinky plastic cars in the Game of Life, or the faces Cap had redrawn for the suspect cards in Clue. Actually, when it came to Clue…

“So you have to narrow it down to a person, a weapon, and a place,” Cap explained to Barnes, who fortunately looked more interested in the game than irritated at being explained to. “Nine people, nine weapons, nine—”

“Wait, nine?” Wilson interrupted. “I thought it was six people.”

“Oh, it was.” Natasha slurped her tea with a satisfied look. “Some people decided that some other people were winning too quickly.”

“Doesn’t that just make it harder for _everybody_?”

Clint shrugged. “That’s what I said.”

Natasha started pulling game pieces out of the box. “Who does everyone want to be?”

“Dr. Jones,” Stark said immediately, like someone was going to beat him to it.

“So who all did you add to make nine?” Wilson asked.

Clint handed him one of the detective pages Pepper had begrudgingly arranged to have printed. It was easier than explaining.

Wilson scanned the list and started laughing. “Oh, man. More people should do this.”

“Wait.”

More than one pair of eyes turned to Barnes. He was studying his own paper so intently Clint thought he might burn a hole through it.

“Thorin son of Thrain son of Thror,” Barnes read out. “That’s…I know that.”

“Yeah.” Cap huffed a laugh. “It was mostly a joke, because of Thor, but yeah. That’s from—”

“Bilbo.” Barnes chewed on his lower lip. “I remember.”

The crooked smile on Cap’s face made Clint have to look away.

Stark cleared his throat. “Well, that’s my dose of feelings for the next week.” He pointed at Natasha. “Lieutenant Ripley goes first.”

\---

They made it around the table twice. Twice, before Natasha said, “Captain Sisko with the bullwhip on the roof,” and reached for the envelope.

“ _No_.” Stark ripped off his glasses. “Not again. That was humanly impossible.”

Natasha shrugged, laying the three cards face up on the board. “You asked all the right questions for me. It was either the bullwhip or the umbrella, and Professor McGonagall here—” she jerked her head at Wilson “—had the umbrella.”

“Meh.” Clint tossed his cards aside. “I knew Sisko and bullwhip, but I thought it was in the elevator.”

“Can it, Mr. Bueller.” Stark jammed his glasses back on. “We’re playing a different game. Suggestions?”

Barnes laid his detective sheet carefully on the table, near enough for Clint to catch a glimpse of a complicated notation system. He didn’t miss the circles marked around _Sisko_ , _bullwhip_ , and _roof_.

“Monopoly,” Barnes said.

Silence descended. Monopoly was probably the only game that had been around way back when. Clint wondered who would have to break it to him.

“Well, uh…” Cap glanced around the table for anyone to jump in, but this one was on him. He sent Barnes a sheepish look. “We’re, uh…we’re not allowed to play Monopoly anymore.”

Barnes’ face didn’t change. “Says who?”

“Pepper,” Stark and Natasha said at the same time.

“And Rhodes,” Clint added. “And Happy. And Dr. Foster. And the people who clean the carpet. And JARVIS, if JARVIS gets a vote. Just everyone, really.”

Given that history, it was frankly inexplicable that they ended up playing Risk.

Or they were idiots. That would explain it.

On this board, all of them were actual contenders. The chances of someone losing an eye or a finger also rose by a power of ten. Stark steamrolled through Australia and South America early on and then sat there eating dry Corn Pops and running his mouth while the rest of them squabbled over Europe and Asia. Clint rolled his eyes and started shoring up Mexico.

“Really?” Stark switched to Bugles, lining them up on his fingers like a twelve-year-old. “No one’s going to make a move?” He waved the clawed hand at his continents.

Clint had ordered those Bugles.

So it was just too tempting, overwhelmingly tempting, to reach for a Cheeto and swipe one of Stark’s pieces off Venezuela.

Clint flicked his eyes around the table. No one had noticed. Natasha was busy in Iceland. Wilson and Cap had teamed up like the obnoxious BFFs they were. (See how long that lasted after the first person got knocked off the board.) Barnes was building some kind of stronghold in Egypt. Stark was the most oblivious man who ever lived.

Clint was one of the ones who fell under “better at cheating at it.” He knew how to vary it up—take one from Peru, one from Indonesia, never from the area Stark was currently focused on. He knew how often to go for it. Always in the middle of a round, when Stark wouldn’t be counting his armies. Ideally in the middle of a rant. And it wasn’t like anyone paid attention to Clint grabbing snacks. Sometimes the people in this tower made it way too easy for him to get away with crap.

Another piece from Argentina was missing.

Clint’s head jerked up before he could rein it in.

“You okay, Clint?” Cap asked mildly.

Barnes threw him an obligatory glance, because Cap had spoken, and returned to Madagascar.

With a sudden rush of—not panic; suspicion—Clint counted up his own armies. Mexico, Kamchatka, most of Canada. Everything seemed right. He counted Argentina again. At this point he was far more aware of those numbers than Stark was. And one was missing.

And then one from New Guinea.

Clint started watching the rest of the map. It made more sense to steal from one of the others—Wilson or Cap, who would sooner or later be forced into a showdown in Asia—but nothing else was taken. Only from Stark. Like Clint was doing.

Then he felt a tap on his kneecap.

And it _had_ to be… Clint cast his gaze around. Nat was out of reach. Cap was flipping through his cards. Stark was gesturing like Stark.

Barnes was looking down, counting out his next round of reinforcements with the metal hand. His other hand was under the table. Which meant he was either fondling his superior officer or—

A double tap, curt and insistent. Barnes’ expression didn’t even flicker.

Clint stared down at the table like he could see through it to the hand underneath. If Barnes wanted to mess with Stark, there was only one thing Clint could imagine him asking for. With every muscle tense, Clint passed one of his own armies into Barnes’ hand.

It appeared in Mexico. Clint blinked a few times. _Damn_ , that bastard was smooth.

The hand tapped his knee again, and Clint took Barnes’ piece.

And fought with every ounce of his self-control not to grin like a fucking idiot.

\---

Stark made an indignant sound, crossing his arms over his chest as Natasha removed his second-to-last army from the board. “Someone here is cheating. JARVIS?”

“Sir, you specifically requested that video recording of any game activity be withheld until the game is over.”

“Don’t want a repeat of that poker night,” Clint muttered.

“ _No one_ wants a repeat of that poker night.” Natasha started arranging Stark’s collection of pieces for him.

“Are you not allowed to play poker either?” Barnes asked guardedly.

“No, we’re allowed,” she replied. “There are just…more rules.”

“How many rules?”

“How much time do you have?”

To be fair, a lot of the rules were too specific to make much sense to anyone who hadn’t already witnessed an Avengers poker game ( _that_ night or any other), like _Tony may not bet using any form of fruit or other food, up to and including dehydrated cheese._ Then the later addendum: _the quinjet is communal property and no one may claim individual rights to it._ Or the classic _no one may play wearing an Avengers uniform, whether or not it belongs to them._

“Guys, are we playing?” Cap was poised to add reinforcements to Siberia. He wouldn’t be able to hold that territory for much longer.

Clint wouldn’t hesitate to say it—for a guy who had learned the rules of the game two hours ago, Barnes was creaming them. Clint handed him a piece under the table and tapped out _G_ for Greenland. Nat was going down.

“Fine.” Stark leaned back in his chair, rocking the front legs off the floor. “But we’re watching the video afterward.”

“I’m afraid I have not been recording, sir.”

Stark frowned. “Didn’t I tell you to automatically record game nights?”

“That setting was overridden by the present company.” JARVIS sounded utterly unrepentant.

“What—”

“JARVIS doesn’t record Bucky.” Cap calmly traded in infantry for cavalry. “I thought you knew that.”

“No one tells me anything in my own house anymore.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have brought all these people to live with you.” Barnes spoke so casually that Clint forgot for a moment how big a deal that sentence was.

“Nice, man.” Wilson held up his hand for a high-five, and Barnes only hesitated for an instant before letting it meet the metal one.

Cap looked like— Clint paused with a Bugle halfway to his mouth. Fuck, he had never seen the guy look this happy. If Barnes hadn’t given him a hint of how things were between them, Clint would have kicked himself for not seeing it now. He chuckled under his breath. Who knew the sun shone out of the Winter Soldier’s ass.

Wilson was the next to go, edged out of Spain with little fanfare. He didn’t put up a fight. “So what do you think?” he asked Barnes. “You like this game?”

Barnes shrugged. “It’s okay.”

Cap snorted but didn’t comment. He seemed reluctant to follow Wilson, reconfiguring his remaining armies to meet Barnes’ inevitable attack from China. No loyalty on the board. Though Clint did catch a lightning-fast brush of hands as Barnes deposited Cap’s pieces back in his pile.

Not for the first time, Clint wondered how far back it went. If they’d been together before the war, they would have had to keep every gesture in check. Or _during_ the war—hell, that would have been an automatic discharge, if not a court-martial. For both of them.

 _Or…_ Clint snuck a look at Cap’s face as he watched Barnes line up his armies into neat rows. Or it might be something new. Something just for them, the people they were now.

The world had a way of changing people.

Clint shook himself when Barnes started tapping letters into his knee.  . _    . . _ .    _ _ .  Afghanistan. He really was going after Cap.

“Buck.” Cap glanced down at his lone occupied territory and then sideways at Barnes, an innocent smile creeping over his face. “Come on.”

Barnes didn’t look away from the board. “You think you can tempt me, Rogers?”

Cap crossed his arms. “Name your price.”

Barnes’ mouth curled into a slow smirk, more like the black-and-white images than anything Clint had seen. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you already sucked me off in the shower, so—”

Stark spat grape juice all over his lap. He tried to take a breath and coughed, pressing a hand to his chest. “You—” His next breath wheezed a little as he gaped at them. “Holy crap, you’re serious.”

Cap’s face was bright red. Barnes’ face was carefully, measuredly blank.

Stark then seemed to register that no one else at the table had lost their drink (though Wilson’s eyes said _shiiiit_ and his grin said _this is exactly what I came here to see_ and Clint decided they should probably start hanging out). Stark narrowed his eyes accusingly. “You knew. All of you knew.” He pointed his finger at the rest of them, stopping on Clint. “Barton? _Barton_ knew before me?”

“Uh…” Clint shifted. “Barely.”

Stark fixed on Cap. “Steven.” He smacked his palm flat against his chest. “You wound me.”

Cap covered his face with his hands. “I can’t believe you said that.”

It took Clint a minute to realize who he was talking to.

Barnes’ cheeks did show a faint trace of a blush. He kept his eyes on the table, looking guilty for the first time. “Well…” His voice dropped. “You _did_.”

Clint tried to hold it in, really he did, but a sound escaped him that could only be described as a giggle. Natasha kicked him under the table, but it was too late. Clint pressed his fist to his mouth, trying to stifle it. Finally get the Winter Soldier to relax, and the first uncalculated thing he says is a lewd comment about Captain America. Then given an opening to apologize, he doubles down.

Thank god he and Clint were going to be friends.

They were going to be friends, right?

Stark was talking again, and Cap mumbled something about six months, but Clint wasn’t paying attention. Before he could chicken out, he reached out to tap on Barnes’ knee.

_ _ .    .    _    . .    _    _ _    . _    _ .

_Get it, man._

Barnes bit his lip to cover a smirk.

“Bucky,” Cap protested when Barnes gathered up the dice to roll his final attack.

“I’ll blow you later.”

“Oh my god.” Cap buried his head in his arms. Clint and Natasha snickered. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

“I think he’s supposed to.” Natasha smiled as Barnes flicked Cap’s last pieces one by one off the board. “Now, come on.” She directed the last part to Clint, gesturing to her remaining armies. “I know where this is going.”

“Nothing personal, Nat.”

“Uh-huh.” She rolled her eyes when the dice landed in his favor. “I knew this was going to happen.”

“Knew you’d lose?”

“Knew _you two_ were going to be a nightmare as soon as you found each other.”

Clint laughed in surprise when she nodded at him and Barnes. She’d known? That Barnes had been testing him? That he would _pass_? He shook his head. He hadn’t done anything, really. Nothing to deserve this.

“You gonna go or what?”

“Shut up, Stevie.”

Ignoring Stark’s gleeful reaction to the _Stevie_ , Barnes continued to study the map with that laser focus. It was divided almost evenly, part purple, part gray. Only two colors left on the board.

Two people left.

It hit Clint like a truckload of bricks. What was about to happen. “Oh, shit.”

Slowly, Bucky lifted his gaze to meet Clint’s. And grinned.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We hope you've enjoyed reading this half as much as we've loved creating it. Tell us what you liked best in the comments! We do intend to add a brief epilogue / bonus scene (hard to let go of these goofballs).
> 
> There are also plans for a companion fic set a little further in the future, so keep an eye on our pages to see another phase of Bucky & Clint's friendship - and more Avengers Tower nonsense.
> 
> Talk to [us](https://ink-dust.tumblr.com/) on [tumblr!](http://l0g0philewrites.tumblr.com/)


	7. Epilogue & Bonus Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened next, and a glimpse at the other side of things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last! It's just a short bit, but another one-shot in this series will be going up later tonight...

The nice part about working with the Avengers (as opposed to ~~SHIELD~~ ~~HYDRA~~ SHIELD) was that everyone after a certain point was in charge of their own training. Which meant if Cap wanted to get up every day at the crack of dawn and run thirty miles, good for him. Clint was going to sleep in.

He made less of a habit of running, overall, than most of them. His time was better spent at the range, and there Stark’s highly material interpretation of friendship served him well. Any new equipment he mentioned magically appeared in the armory. When he wondered aloud about target arrows that mimicked the weight and balance of his latest techie ones, Stark had him down in the lab two days later flinging around prototypes. No one he knew had a full collection of arrows that weren’t even intended to see the field.

And apparently he didn’t either.

For a minute Clint just stared at the rack. The quivers weren’t _empty._ They had been filled with— He pulled out one of the plain arrows, the tip catching on…its suction cup.

“What the…” He grabbed a handful from another quiver. Every single one had been replaced with a suction cup kiddie toy.

Except for one.

He found it in the center of a quiver, one of his best techie-replicas. Heavy carbon, perfectly straight. He untaped the paper wrapped around the middle and the shaft fell apart in two pieces.

Clint stifled what would have undeniably been a whine of dismay. He unrolled the note.

_Return the shirts and none of them will be harmed._

And then in a slightly less tidy scrawl, like it had been added as an afterthought: _Except this one._

“You were innocent,” he said mournfully, stroking the remaining arrow half. “Only meant for little bullseye targets.” But he was already grinning.

 

Clint added one line to the note suction-cupped to Bucky’s door— _Same time, same place_ —and left him to discover his Cap shirts tied with red pipe cleaners around the barrels of every rifle in the armory.

 

 

bonus scene

“That was nice,” Steve said, slipping off his shoes at the door. Dinner in restaurants could still be iffy, but the place Sam had taken them was quiet, with good sight lines. Bucky had seemed content. “I know Sam had a good time. We should do that again.”

That part was a question, and Steve tried not to think about the role reversal. How in another life Bucky would have come home bouncing on his feet, already talking about the next night out. But that Bucky also hadn’t come home with Steve—not in this way. This Bucky was his.

Steve realized the apartment had gone silent.

“Bucky?” Steve followed his path to the bedroom and found him standing motionless in front of the dresser. “Buck?”

Bucky didn’t answer. He was staring down into one of the drawers, but when Steve got close enough to see why, it didn’t make any more sense.

“ _Hawkeye_?” he asked, baffled. Clint was stealing their clothes? Giving them clothes? Giving them Hawkeye clothes?

He jumped when choked sound erupted beside him. And another, raspy and gleeful, as Bucky broke out in snorting laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are the best, and we are definitely not done with this universe. Stay tuned!


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